


Purple at the Edge

by ConjureUpaSmile



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Kiss, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Minor Character Death, Questioning Sexuality, Slow Build, Stream of Consciousness, Underage Drinking, ambiguous time period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:29:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConjureUpaSmile/pseuds/ConjureUpaSmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life isn't always what it's supposed to be.  It's painful and messy and unfair, but now they have each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple at the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try stream of consciousness and this happened. I'm not sure about how it turned out, but I do hope that there will be people that like it. I think I like it, at least.
> 
> Un-beta'ed as usual. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> *Edit - just corrected some mistakes that I saw

“Do you ever wonder what it’s like, Stevie?”

A flashlight lit up the comic book squeezed between them, thin comforter pulled tight over their heads to block the light from escaping down the hall and waking Steve’s ma. 

“Wonder what what’s like?” Steve asked, not bothering to look up from where one of his favorite heroes was saving the day.

“You know,” Bucky knocked Steve’s shoulder with his own, finally getting enough of Steve’s attention to motion toward the cell where Daredevil and Elektra had their faces pressed tightly together.

Steve’s face burned red in the pale light and he hoped Bucky wouldn’t notice. “I guess I wonder,” he conceded and tried to flip the page.

Bucky pressed the page back down, continuing to stare down at the illustrated couple. “I bet it’s nice,” he breathed. 

“Sure, Buck.” This time Steve succeeded in turning the page.

 

 

Bucky’s first kiss was just a couple weeks into their freshman year. It was Steve’s first high school party and he was sure that he wouldn’t have been invited if he wasn’t best friends with a member of the JV football team.

Steve watched the pretty redhead with the supple lips and fully developed breasts lean into the center of the circle formed by the young teens and give the empty liquor bottle a firm spin. He watched it spin and spin and spin, each rotation slower than the last. 

Steve held his breath as the bottle’s speed slowed to a crawl and the mouth pointed directly toward him. He watched the redhead, her gaze fixed on the bottle. He watched her full lips stretch into a sultry smile that she looked up and directed toward…Bucky.

Steve looked down and saw the bottle had just barely passed him, choosing Bucky instead as the recipient of the redhead’s affections. 

It shouldn’t have been a relief, but it was. Steve couldn’t help but be glad that it was Bucky who was being led by tangled fingers into a coat closet. Bucky, who wanted this. Plus, Bucky was a much better match for the mature redhead, what with Steve being several inches shorter than the girl and probably thirty pounds lighter.

Steve watched as the closet door opened seven minutes later and Bucky emerged beaming and moderately rumpled.

“It should have been you, Stevie,” Bucky told him as Steve lead him home. “I mean, she’s great. No! Amazing! Did you see the knockers on her? Of course you did. And, I mean, she really knew what she was doing! Just wait until you try it, Stevie! I think I’m in love!”

“Good for you, Buck,” Steve replied, puffing under his best friend’s inebriated weight. “Just wait. My first kiss will probably be a prettier dame than yours.”

They laughed into the warm night, younger than they’d ever be again, never having felt more alive.

 

It turned out her name was Natalie. Bucky wasn’t around quite as much once they started dating, but Steve figured that was okay. Bucky was happy. Natalie was great, just like Buck had said.

The days started getting shorter and cooler and by the time the trees had lost their leaves, Steve found himself a part of a group of friends. For so long it had just been him and Buck against the world, so maybe this was better.

 

 

Bucky told Steve that he should kiss Jeanie. Bucky somehow convinced the voluptuous blonde cheerleader to join them at the county fair. She stood several inches taller than Steve and her body was nearly as matured as Natalie’s. The fall air was cool and Steve imagined that she’d welcome his arm around her as they rode the ferris wheel or gratefully accept Steve’s jacket as the night wore on.

Instead, she watched Bucky over Steve’s head until Nat made her take a taxi home. Nat squeezed Steve’s hand, but he shrugged her away with a smile. Bucky called Jeanie some names that Steve didn’t find appropriate. It wasn’t her fault that Steve was a tiny asthmatic. No one could blame her for wanting better.

 

 

Natalie told Steve that he should ask out the slim brunette with the kind eyes and tight smile named Laura. Nat started dragging her along whenever the three of them hung out. She was nice, practical, and more willful than one might imagine. 

Steve found himself endeared by the way she crinkled up her nose when she laughed. She talked to Steve like he mattered, like he was more than Bucky’s little sidekick.

Steve imagined cupping her chin and pressing his lips to hers. He thought that he would enjoy it. He’d call her his girl and hold her hand in the hallway and bring her over to eat dinner with him and Ma.

Laura came to one of their movie nights at Nat’s house. She waited until Bucky and Natalie got distracted making popcorn before cornering Steve in the living room. She asked him if he knew if Clint was seeing anyone. Somehow, Steve wasn’t disappointed.

 

 

Everything changed when his ma died. Mrs. Barnes showed up at their lunch period crying. Bucky panicked. He babbled on, asking if it was his dad. She just shook her head at him and pulled Steve into her embrace, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“She’s gone.”

Steve felt numb, too shocked to cry.

“You’ll stay with us now.”

What was he supposed to do?

“I’m so sorry.”

So was Steve.

 

 

The day they moved his things into the Barnes’ house, the sky was overcast. It had been raining off and on all week.

“Who’s that?” Steve pointed at a boy about their age in a retro t-shirt and grungy jeans sitting on Bucky’s front steps. “He looks familiar.”

Glancing over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky said, “That’s Tony. He’s in our year, but over at Thorton Academy. He’s crazy smart, apparently. Sometimes he hangs out here because his parents aren’t home much.” 

The boy stood up as the two approached, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

“Who’s the shrimp, Barnes?” Tony eyed Steve up and down warily.

“Tony, this is Stevie. Stevie, Tony.” Steve pinked at being introduced by Bucky’s nickname. “He, uh, lives with us now.”

Tony’s warm brown eyes framed with too-long lashes cut over to meet Steve’s. “Where are his parents?”

“They died,” Steve interjected before Bucky had to say it.

Tony’s expressive eyebrows shot up and he rocked back on his heels. “Lucky you.”

Steve punched Tony in the mouth, splitting his bottom lip. He didn’t like bullies.

 

 

Natalie kissed Steve’s cheek at the funeral. 

He sweated in his itchy suit under the April sun, thinking that at any moment he’d wake up to the sounds of his Ma making breakfast. 

Friends of his mother hugged Steve and told him they were sorry. They ruffled his hair. They told him to be strong. They told him that his Ma wouldn’t have wanted him to be sad.

Steve thought that none of him really knew Ma well enough to speak about what she would have wanted. 

He stood next to the six foot hole, staring down at the cheap box where she rested, and waited for the familiar lurch of awakening. He stood there until the cool bite of New England spring evenings filled the air. He stood there until Mrs. Barnes insisted that Bucky give him space. He stood there until Tony with his busted lip came and stood by him silently. 

 

 

Between sophomore and junior years, Steve grew nearly a foot and put on sixty pounds of muscle. Just like that, he was no longer invisible. He earned a spot on the varsity football team with Bucky and Clint playing cornerback. 

He was doing what he was supposed to do.

He took less art classes. He wore his blue and white letterman jacket to school everyday. He smiled at the girls and made them giggle.

A slender blonde with soft curls and a crooked smile pulled him under the bleachers after one football game. Her small hips felt comfortable under his large hands and his heart thudded erratically in his chest as she breathed into his ear how brave and strong and handsome he was. He could feel warmth radiating off her body in the cool autumn night, causing goosebumps to rise up along his bare arms. Steve closed his eyes and he almost wanted it. 

Steve didn’t even know her name.

Tony told him her name was Marjorie as he beat Steve with a feather pillow that night at Bucky’s house. He told Steve that it didn’t matter what her name was. He told Steve that he should have kissed her as he pinned Steve down by sitting on his chest and ruffled Steve’s hair with his knuckles.

The boys laughed and wrestled. Tony teased Steve with his quick wit and sharp tongue. Steve, in turn, didn’t say anything about Tony’s black eye that looked fresh in the moonlight as he crawled through Bucky’s window. 

They sucked in air after Tony finally called uncle. Steve collapsed onto his bed next to Tony and he thought it was interesting how Tony’s nose curled up just a little at the end.

Tony told him that Marjorie was a good kisser. The smile that he gave Steve insinuated that he might even know more about Marjorie than that. 

Steve didn’t regret pushing Marjorie away as she closed her eyes and leaned into him. He did wish that she hadn’t cried.

 

 

Everyone told him to ask Peggy out. 

The first time Steve saw the British exchange student with the strong, angular jaw and tomboyish clothes, she was leveling the wide receiver with a sharp right hook. 

In her defense, he deserved in.

In his defense, Steve could understand why he would catcall her.

Finally, Steve thought he understood. Peggy was as close to perfect as he was ever going to get. She was strong, kind, and tough as nails. Steve pictured himself dropping kisses down her long neck and at the corner of her jaw. He could imagine smearing her perfect lipstick with his lips. He would tangle his fingers in her dark hair and pull her closer with the other hand in the small of her back.

She looked over at Steve and blushed, eyes darting up and down his new body. 

 

 

They became fast friends. Peggy became the kicker for the football team. Steve carried her books to her classes and she started sitting with Steve and his friends during lunch.

Bucky gave him two thumbs up. Nat just smiled. Bruce clapped him on the back and Steve thought Clint was about to say something inappropriate before Nat pinned her twin brother with a meaningful look. Clint ended up just nodding in approval. 

The football schedule made it difficult to find time alone with the handsome brunette. Bucky told Steve to sneak out. Bucky said he owed Steve for all the times he covered for him while he snuck out to see Nat. Tony smelled like expensive liquor when he showed up at the window that night. Steve sat next to him and rubbed his back while he vomited late into the night.

Steve and Peggy held hands on the bus on the way to their games. In the darkness on the way back home, she laid her head on his broad shoulder. Once, Steve kissed her hair as she dozed off some-dozen miles from home. 

Spring came and Peggy booked her flight home. She told Steve that she’d miss him when he drove her to the airport in Mr. Barnes’ borrowed car. She told Steve that her cousin who had taken her place in England was looking forward to meeting him when she returned home. Steve felt light headed as he walked her as far as he could go, hand in hand with his first love. 

She looked sad when she pulled away from him. Steve took a deep breath and tugged her back to him by her fingers. He leaned down as she leaned up. Steve closed his eyes and pressed his lips together to meet hers.

Steve opened his eyes when he felt she soft skin of her cheek make contact with his lips. He could taste the salt from her tears as they fell softly from her honey eyes.

“I promise I will never forget you.”

 

 

Bucky didn’t sneak out that night. He didn’t complain when Steve crawled into bed next to him, nor did he say anything when Steve accidentally let a choked sob escape.

Bucky just pulled Steve’s head to his chest and promised that the right one was out there. Maybe she was even closer than Steve realized. 

“That’s easy for you to say,” Steve managed to croak. “You have Natalie.”

“Well, you’ll always have me, Stevie,” Bucky told him. “No matter what.”

Steve wanted to say that it wasn’t the same. If Steve couldn’t make it work with Peggy, what were the chances that he’d be able to make it work with anyone?

It was too hot pressed up against Bucky, under his thick blankets. Bucky snored and kicked in his sleep, but the familiarity was comfortable and Steve loved Bucky and Steve was so alone and the world was so big and Peggy was gone. Steve ended up staying there all night.

 

 

Just like Peggy promised, her cousin came back in her place. Sharon was blonde and feminine with curvy hips and a dainty face. Her and Nat quickly became inseparable.

Sharon filled the emptiness left by Peggy’s absence. She laughed at Steve’s jokes and touched his arm gently to get his attention. She smiled at him like he hung the moon.

Natalie told Steve that Sharon wanted him to ask her out, so he did. 

They held hands and Steve carried her books and sometimes they splurged and went to the movies. It was like Peggy had never existed.

Except that she had.

Sharon wasn’t Peggy.

“The best way to get over one girl is to get under another,” Tony told him as they walked to Bucky’s house together. 

“That’s crass, Tony,” Steve scolded and blushed.

Tony shrugged. “It’s also true.”

They walked in silence for a bit before Tony spoke again. “Is there a reason why you won’t do anything more than hold hands with her?”

This time it was Steve’s turn to shrug. “It just…doesn’t feel right. I don’t know that I feel that way about her.”

“It’s kissing, Steve. No one is asking you to marry her.”

Steve stopped walking and Tony had to jolt to a halt when he realized what was happening. He looked confused as Steve scrubbed his hands up and down his face. “I know! I know. I just feel like it should be special. I feel like I should feel something. I want to kiss a girl because I want to, not because I feel like I should or even because I feel like I should want to.”

Steve looked down to meet Tony’s gaze. Tony’s long eyelashes blinked slowly, his face open and caring. The moment dragged on and Steve’s backpack made his shoulders ache, but there was something playing across Tony’s expressive face that Steve wanted to understand, and Steve’s stomach lurched uncomfortably.

“Pepper’s mad that I spend more time with you than I do with her.”

Tony’s words shattered the silence. 

Steve opened his mouth to apologize, but Tony was already walking and waving off Steve’s response. “I’m going to head over to her place now, but I’ll be by later tonight, if you’re not already asleep.”

“I’ll be awake!” Steve defended himself. “I’m always awake!”

“Sure, grandpa. Whatever you say.”

Steve jogged to catch up and give his friend a dead leg.

 

 

They had just finished their last exams and Buck and Nat had found someone to buy them beer. Steve chipped in what he could afford because they were seniors now and that meant they ruled the world.

Tony’s parents were out of town, so Steve picked up Sharon at ten and they headed over. The party was already well underway by the time they got there. Steve didn’t think he recognized half the people there, which didn’t matter because they were all young and free.

“Sharon wants you to kiss her,” Natalie spoke loudly into his ear over the thumping of the music. She leaned heavily against Steve’s shoulder and her words slurred lightly on her tongue. Bucky beamed behind her, keeping Sharon distracted so that Nat could deliver her message. “You better hurry up and do it before I kiss you just to prove that it’s not a big deal.”

Steve’s head swam with the beer and the brown liquor drinks that Tony had placed in his hand as he shook it back and forth. “I don’t think Bucky would like that,” Steve protested.

“Remember when we almost kissed freshman year?” Nat looked up at him with her big blue eyes and soft supple lips and Steve vaguely remembered the dread he felt at the chance that the bottle might choose him. 

“You’re making me jealous!” Sharon bumped into Steve’s other side and he reflexively curled his arm around her, depositing Nat into Bucky’s embrace.

“What do you say we give them some space, sweetheart?” Bucky stared straight at Steve as he spoke to Natalie, sending him a wink that Steve was sure was supposed to be encouraging and not foreboding. 

Sharon smiled up at Steve and he smiled back. When he looked back over for Bucky, he saw Nat leading him upstairs.

Steve’s world lurched when a heavy weight landed on his back and he had to stumble a few feet before catching his balance. Legs hooked around his waist and Tony’s face smirked down at him over his shoulder and Sharon’s smile faltered, but Steve grinned wider as his friend ordered him to “mush to the kitchen for more drinks!”

Tony badgered him until he put his mouth around the small cup of brown liquor that Tony had already egged Sharon into putting between her breasts. Steve tipped the cup up without his hands, some of the liquor escaping from the edges of his lips and leaving sticky trails down his neck. Sharon flushed as she flicked her dainty, feminine tongue across the liquor trails from his collarbone to his chin. Tony cheered and Steve felt dizzy. 

It would be so easy to drop his chin and let their lips touch, but Steve’s feet were already moving, shuffling, beneath him. It felt like they teleported like in his comic books because he couldn’t really remember walking to a bedroom, but it looked like it might be Tony’s and Sharon was pressed up against him, warm and delicate and feminine. 

She looked expectant and Steve was having a hard time standing up straight. She carded a hand through his hair and Steve closed his eyes for a moment to try and feel, but the world spun even worse and he opened them again. Sharon was closer and she was tugging him down but Steve didn’t feel right and he didn’t want her.

“What?” Sharon sounded confused. Steve was confused, too, but he knew that he must have already said the words, so it was too late.

“I don’t want you. I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t. I’m so sorry.” Sharon was crying and Steve was confused and Sharon was yelling at him to leave.

It felt important and Steve suddenly felt more sober than he had been just moments before. So, he did what Sharon asked and he left. 

Steve wandered the halls calling for Tony because it felt right. He was in what looked to be a fairly unused portion of the house when a door swung open and Tony’s face appeared. He was shirtless and disheveled. It looked like someone had been running their fingers through his hair.

“Steve? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Tony closed the door behind him and darted into the hall, grabbing Steve by the shoulders as if inspecting him for injuries.

“I don’t know…I need…” Steve didn’t know what he needed. Everything was wrong, but Tony would fix it. He reached up because he wanted to run his fingers through Tony’s hair, too.

“Steve?” Tony was talking to him again. “Do you need to go home?”

Tony’s eyes were so concerned. Steve wanted to say yes, but that would upset Tony.

The door behind Tony burst open and tall, slender, strawberry blonde stalked out. Tony spun around at the sound and yelled out, “Pepper!” but the girl didn’t stop. Gripping Steve’s shoulder again and looking him straight in the eye, Tony said, “Steve, I want you to go downstairs and go outside and then sit on the porch swing until I get there. Okay? Can you do that?”

Steve nodded because Tony needed him to. 

 

 

Finding his way out was difficult and Steve didn’t make it outside without taking several shots with Clint and when he got there the swing was already occupied by a couple did didn’t know making out. 

Steve didn’t know what to do and everything was wrong, so he started walking. 

He only made it to the end of the street when he heard heavy footsteps clopping down the road behind him. Steve stopped and turned to see Tony closing the distance between them.

“You ass! I told you to wait!” Tony was panting and his was angry. Steve’s throat burned.

“I’m sorry. Everything’s wrong.” Steve swallowed hard. “Sharon’s mad, Pepper’s mad, I didn’t want to ruin your night, too.”

“Asshat,” Tony muttered, but he wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist. 

They walked in silence the quarter mile to Bucky’s house and climbed into the window that him and Bucky had snuck out of earlier. Tony grabbed some comic books off the shelves beside Steve’s bed, but all the words jumbled together and were too hard to read, so Steve just looked at the pictures while Tony turned the pages.

“Did you guys breakup?”

Steve looked up to see Tony looking back at him. Steve shrugged. “I told her I didn’t want her.”

Tony sucked air in through his teeth. “That sounds like a breakup to me. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Steve shrugged again. “Did you and Pepper break up?”

Tony gazed off through the window and Steve suddenly realized that he still wasn’t wearing a shirt. “No,” he said wryly, “Not yet.”

Maybe he should have kissed Sharon.

 

 

Tony showed up at football practice with an envelope and an anxious expression. He stood by the fence until practice was over. Bucky told Steve to go see what Tony needed and that he would catch up with them in a minute.

So, Tony and Steve sat in the crunchy grass and stared at the letter with an MIT return address while Tony babbled on about the statistics of football.

“Hey, Tony?” Tony looked surprised when Steve interrupted him. “Open it.”

The first word on the paper was “Congratulations” and Tony started laughing and choking on tears that weren’t falling and Steve smiled so hard that his face hurt.

“I did it,” Tony kept repeating over and over between bursts of laughter. “I did it! I’m getting out of there! I did it!”

“You did it,” Steve assured and ruffled Tony’s hair with his knuckles, holding his friend in a half headlock half hug that didn’t matter because Steve wasn’t going to MIT.

 

 

Natalie had a seemingly endless list of girls she wanted Steve to date. She recommended Kristen from her statistics class, but Steve was hesitant.

“You know she just wants you to be as happy as her and I are right?” Bucky asked him one night when Steve brought it up. Steve just nodded and dropped the subject.

Tony came over every night for two weeks to help Steve and Bucky with their college applications. He only brought up applying to MIT twice during their application sessions, but mentioned it to Steve once more when they were alone because they all knew that Bucky didn’t have a chance of being accepted to MIT.

Steve eventually let Tony fill out an application to MIT for him. It was worth it just to see the small amount of relief wash across Tony’s face and the excited smile tug on the corners of his lips as he scribbled out the perfect essay.

 

 

Steve was named team captain of the football team the night before their kickoff game. Bucky, Nat, Clint, Bruce, and Tony took him out to the diner to celebrate and Nat sewed the new patch on his letterman jacket that night. It was too warm still for jackets, but that didn’t stop the senior boys.

Homecoming came and Natalie tried to prod Steve into mending things with Sharon. He had a feeling that she knew what happened at the party since she remained close to Sharon, but that did nothing but firm his resolve to keep that tie severed.

They won their homecoming game and it felt like winning the state championship. The girls shivered in their strapless dresses and the boys offered them their suit jackets, but Steve stayed at the dance just long enough to say he went and then he went home. He laid in bed and read comic books until Bucky swayed into the room a little past midnight.

“I think I’m going to marry her one day,” he told Steve that night, laying in his bed still in his dress shirt and slacks.

Steve stayed awake until almost two, but Tony's form never appeared at their window. Steve missed Ma. She would have liked seeing him as captain of the football team, dressed up in a consignment store suit and smiling ear to ear as he slipped a corsage on a girl’s wrist.

 

 

The days got shorter and the letters came one after the other and they all said the same thing: “Mr. Barnes, we regret to inform you that you were not granted admittance to our university at this time…”

Bucky acted like he didn’t mind. Tony fretted and filled out more college applications. Natalie held quiet conversations with him about his future late at night when they thought that Steve was asleep. 

Steve didn’t open his letters. He couldn’t pay for college anyway.

 

 

They didn’t win state. Their team was eliminated in the quarterfinals and the bus ride home was probably worse than the loss itself. All the seniors knew that there were no more second chances.

Someone must have told Tony because he was sitting on Steve’s bed when they got home. He had the newest issue of Thor and the three boys huddled together to watch one of their heroes overcome his foes. They needed the victory.

Natalie almost convinced Steve to go out with a girl named Emily that he had never met. She did trick him into a double date that involved a slim brunette with curls a button nose named Caroline. Steve politely paid for her meal but declined a second date.

“Am I getting a little closer to your type?” Nat asked him.

“He doesn’t have a type,” Tony interrupted.

Steve just shrugged and doodled in the margins of his homework and mumbled something about being too busy to date.

 

 

Bucky got his last rejection letter early spring semester. Two nights later, he announced at dinner that he was joining the army. Mrs. Barnes cried. Mr. Barnes shook his hand. Steve stayed silent.

That night, when Tony and his freshly split lip lay huddled up next to Steve, Steve told Tony that he was joining the army, too. Tony stayed silent, chewing his lip.

“Please, don’t,” he requested softly.

“I have to,” Steve whispered.

 

Bucky told him to ask Jessica to prom, so he did. The short brunette with the hourglass figure and pouty lips clung to Steve’s arm for pictures and shot him dazzling smiles all night. She didn’t even seem to mind that he didn’t want to dance. 

Bucky proposed to Natalie under the full moon after the last dance and she said yes. Steve thought that he could see the starlight reflected in her eyes, but maybe those were just tears. They weren’t supposed to grow up this quickly, but Steve knew that Bucky was scared and Steve was a little scared, too. 

Jessica leaned in for a kiss when Steve dropped her off at her doorstep, but he hugged her instead.

 

Tony showed up long after Steve had fallen asleep. He knocked on the tempered glass until Steve dragged himself out of bed, tugged off his shirt that had somehow gotten sticky with sweat under the too-warm blankets, and unlocked the window. 

Steve turned on the ceiling fan before joining Tony’s lithe form on his bed. He pinched the inside of his own elbows in an unsuccessful attempt to chase the sleep away. 

Even with the fan on, being next to Tony was too warm, but Steve didn’t move away.

“She said she'd finally had enough,” Tony whispered.

Steve stayed silent, but grabbed some comics and a flashlight. 

“I think I’m more relieved than sad,” Tony said. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it is,” Steve answered.

They read silently while Steve tried to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids were so heavy and Tony’s weight on the bed next to him was comfortable.

 

 

Graduation came too quickly after that. Mrs. Barnes took hundreds of pictures of Bucky and Natalie as they sweated in their graduation caps and gowns. Steve tried to stay out of the way, but Mrs. Barnes made sure to fuss over him as well.

The Barnes family cheered just as loudly for Steve when he received his diploma as they did for Bucky. He still wished Ma could be there because she would have been proud and he could almost hear her lilting voice cheering for him. A sharp whistle cut across the sound of the cheers and Steve saw Tony standing and clapping and whistling through his fingers to make as much noise as possible.

 

 

They only had four days to pack after graduation. One of those days was spent at the courthouse as Nat and Buck pledged before a judge and their closest friends to love each other forever. Bucky cried and so did Nat and Mrs. Barnes made them promise to have a real wedding once Bucky got his orders. 

“See?” Steve whispered to Tony when the judge told Bucky to kiss the bride. “That’s what a kiss is about. It shouldn’t be just anyone.”

Tony pulled a face and stuck out his tongue, but for once he didn’t have a smart comeback.

 

 

Steve surrendered his bed so that the newlyweds could have some alone time before they left for bootcamp. Mrs. Barnes told him that Tony could spend the night, too, and Steve got the feeling that the Barnes’ knew more about Tony’s late night visits than him and Bucky had given them credit for. 

“Let’s just put my bags in the car now so that we can sleep in a little later in the morning,” Steve suggested.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Tony grabbed one of Steve’s two bags and marched toward Mr. Barnes’s Volvo. 

Steve laughed because he needed to and followed his friend. They placed Steve’s bags in the trunk and as Tony slammed the door closed on them, he stilled, hands frozen to the trunk in reverence to the seriousness of the moment. 

The sun was setting and the night was muggy, but going inside meant getting ready to go to bed and going to bed meant waking up and waking up meant saying goodbye.

Steve slid to the ground next to the back tire and Tony settled against him. They pressed together from thigh to shoulder and Steve prayed for more time. 

“Please don’t go,” Tony whispered, refusing to make eye contact, pretending like he could take the words back. “We can figure something out. I’ll make my dad pay your tuition or we’ll get you a football scholarship or I’m sure there’s some sort of scholarship program for orphans, just don’t, Steve, please! We’ll work something out for Bucky, too! We’ll get you in somewhere near Boston or you can stay with me until we figure it out...Steve…” his voice trailed off as his voice cracked.

Steve put his arms around Tony and ran his fingers through his hair and lifted his best friend’s chin and suddenly he realized why he found Peggy with her broad shoulders and strong jaw and slim hips attractive.

No one ever told Steve that his first kiss could be the boy with the too-long eyelashes and smart mouth, the boy that he punched on their first meeting, the boy with the mysterious bruises and more brains than anyone Steve had ever met.

It was more than Steve ever imagined. It was gentle and scared but made his heart clench and dragged him in and it was just more. Steve’s body buzzed like he’d had too much to drink and he felt light headed. It tickled his chin where Tony had grown a Van Dyke because he thought it made him look more mature. He could taste salt and Steve couldn’t help but wonder if it would be less wet without one or both participants allowing tears to drain down their cheeks and get trapped between their lips. Still, it was perfect. It was what he had waited for.

 

Steve wanted to pretend that if they just stayed there and ignored the purple at the edge of the horizon that they could just stay there forever. It would be okay. Tony said he would write everyday and he’d be there at graduation. In turn, Steve would request to stay on the east coast. Tony’s expression said that he’d make sure it happened. 

Life wasn’t always what it was supposed to be. It was painful and messy and unfair, but now they had each other. 

They stayed huddled together in each others’ arms by the back tire of Mr. Barnes’ Volvo all night, making promises and heartfelt admissions softly in the dark. They were younger than they’d ever be again and more alive than then had ever felt before.

Steve thought it was worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky gripped Natalie's hand too tight as he carried his bags to his dad's car. She gave his hand a quick squeeze and he, too, saw the figures of his brother and his best friend clutching eachother tightly in the pale morning light. 
> 
> He looked over at his new wife and she offered him a sad smile.
> 
> "It's about time, right?"
> 
> \---
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated :]


End file.
